Fostering employee well-being and workplace recovery in the hospitality industry: the role of supportive break times at work

The study investigates the mechanism of hospitality employees’ recovery during break times at work. It adopted semi-structured in-depth interviews targeting twenty-nine hotel employees in Japan. The results provide nine recovery activities falling into four categories: cognitive, relaxation, nutrition intake, and social activities. Eight recovery experiences are also found, including two new types not identified in the previous studies: reconnection and refreshment. Built on the effort-recovery model and conservation of resource theory, it reveals a two-phase structure of recovery experiences, with three groups of primary experiences leading to specific secondary experiences, which suggests that employees undertake multiple recovery experiences until they reach a state of recovery. It also supports the significance of contextual constraints in employees’ recovery process at work. The study enhances our understanding of recovery theories within the context of work breaks in the hospitality industry. It assists managers in creating more effective organisational interventions to support employee recovery during breaks.